


key to me

by ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Thieves, Community: trope_bingo, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Heist, M/M, Suit Porn, lockpicking, safecracking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 14:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42





	key to me

title: key to me  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
word count: approx. 2190  
fandom: X-Men: First Class  
characters: Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr  
rating: PG-13  
notes: Written for [](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**trope_bingo**](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/). Prompt: fake relationship. My card is [here](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/215352.html).  
I don't have much knowledge about safecracking and lockpicking, much less stealing a diamond. The Ebony Star is based on descriptions of the real-life Black Moon, the third largest faceted black diamond in the world.

  
The first time Erik gets kissed to within an inch of his life by the man he has _wanted_ to kiss for practically forever now, he’s in broad daylight, there is a set of lockpicks in the secret pocket of his pinstriped suit jacket, and there are cameras clicking and people laughing.

Some of those laughing voices are actually calling out suggestions, stars above.

And Charles, the absolute _fiend_ , straightens up and licks his lips as though he has been doing something normal, as though he has been doing something that Erik has been expecting. “Shall we go on in, darling?” he asks, and he doesn’t wait for Erik’s answer: he simply grabs Erik’s wrist again, and tows him into the crush.

It takes a walk up two long sweeping flights of stairs before Erik can get his breath back, and he leans in and feigns a smile, but what he really whispers in Charles’s ear is, “What the absolute fuck was that?”

Charles’s grin, if anything, becomes sunnier. He cups his hand around Erik’s ear - Erik nearly jumps, because there are burn marks and scars all around the wrists and on the palm but the fingertips that brush against his skin are soft and warm - and whispers, “There was a set of cameras that hadn’t been on the blueprints. It would have been bloody obvious if we’d covered up our faces. I turned you away and hid my face the only way I could.”

“I - ” Erik tries to run up against that logic and, as he so often does when Charles is involved, runs up against one hell of a brick wall. “A little more warning next time,” he settles for saying.

He’s still trembling from the kiss: he can feel it caroming around in his head, ten thousand sparks of sensation prickling in his skin.

Is it because of the kiss, or is it because it’s _Charles_?

But no, Erik has to force that thought down. This is a job, nothing more: they have a task, and they’ve been given leave to do basically anything and everything they can in order to complete it, as long as they’re discreet, as long as they’re smart.

Charles leads them down a familiar path and then they’re there, right in the same room as their objective.

Red felt, bulletproof glass, armed guards, two queues. The light in the room shatters on an intricate arrangement of facets, throwing back flared reflections that are no less beautiful for all they are somewhat subdued.

Erik pretends to read the sign on a small pedestal next to the floor-to-ceiling showcase: _Ebony Star. Currently in private ownership. 30.42 carats, nearly internally flawless, mined and cut in Brazil. First time on exhibit._

One of the guards on the diamond raises an eyebrow in Charles’s direction, and Erik hurries back to his side. “Everything all right?” he asks, plastering a falsely reassuring/solicitous smile on his face, and it’s frightening because there’s never been anything between them, not in the handful of jobs they’ve pulled, but it’s always been easy to be concerned for Charles.

Charles, who is reckless and who happily pays the price for that recklessness.

The collar of his shirt droops in the back, and it allows Erik to catch a glimpse of the scars on Charles’s back: four deep parallel lines raking down over his left shoulder blade. Erik had sewn them up himself. There had been a job and they had nearly fallen out a window to their deaths, dragged down by someone who hadn’t wanted to die.

“I’m fine,” Charles says, blithely.

They follow the crush of the crowd as they’re led out of the room where the Ebony Star is being exhibited, and Charles looks over his shoulder as they turn away from the door.

They’re quiet for as long as they’re surrounded by other people going to the museum; Charles doesn’t speak again until they’re back in their rented car. “Do you need to get in again?”

“No,” Erik says. “I think our information is good. Found two more of the laser emplacements.”

“Seven out of a possible eight. I didn’t think my family would be so _lax_ with what is arguably something valuable and important to them.” There is an angry shadow in Charles’s eyes now. “Then again, I don’t think those people have any concept of value whatsoever.”

Erik says nothing, just slouches around in the shotgun seat, trying to get comfortable.

“Anyway.” He watches Charles pull himself together with an effort. “You have a date and time in mind?”

Erik exhales, and focuses on the task at hand. “As soon as we can get the invitations for the gala, we can move.”

“So it’s still your crazy plan we’re going with,” Charles hums, looking amused. “Because I know crazy, I’ve worked with you and some of the other guys, and I still think it’s _insane_ to just think you can get in and steal that diamond when all you’re wearing is a tux.”

Erik grins. “I might as well be crazy. It’s the last time,” he says. “One last job and I’m out for good.”

“That seems to be something I’ve been hearing for a while now.”

“We’re getting beat at our own game, Charles,” Erik says gently. “And these games are exciting, and they are also very, very tiring.”

Charles smiles faintly. “Point, and point. Are you trying to convince me of something?”

And Erik would have to be deaf and _dead_ to miss the innuendo in Charles’s voice, but he only permits himself a raised eyebrow, and a deliberately inflammatory response: “Haven’t I already?”

Charles chuckles knowingly.

*

_Two weeks later_

The problem with being in a crowd of this size is that Erik can’t help but fidget, and the problem with _that_ is that fidgeting clashes with his clothes.

A warm pair of hands lands atop both of his. “You’re shaking,” Charles says quietly.

“Adrenaline rush,” Erik says in the same quiet tone.

Charles smiles and holds Erik’s hands more tightly. “And you’re cold, too.”

Erik hopes his answering smile looks like the right kind of nervous: more _I’ve never been in a place like this before,_ less _why are you holding my hands like this when there’s nothing between us and there will never be despite all of my best efforts._

Thankfully, Charles looks like his regular self. Cheerfully oblivious, which is a feat when Erik knows he’s taking everyone and everything in. There are reasons why Charles is feared in their world, in the world of people who know a thing or two about stealing things and data and people, and Erik knows that this reason is pretty much the _least_ of them.

He holds his breath when they get to the security check; the guards don’t seem to give a fuck about the women in evening gowns and the men in black tie. Everyone is searched thoroughly. Erik tries to keep his poker face on as he’s patted down.

No one seems to notice the thin plastic tools stashed in the lining of Erik’s jacket, weighing the hems down; and no one seems to notice that the mobile phone in Charles’s pocket is also an autodialer.

“‘There’s an app for that’,” Charles mutters once they’re out of the infernal reception line, once they’re mingling with the city’s most important people, along with a significant portion of its poseurs and wannabes. “Thank goodness technology marches on, mmm?”

“Thank goodness we can pay for that app, you mean,” Erik grumbles. He hesitates over taking a flute of champagne from a passing server’s tray - but apparently Charles is under no such compunctions, because he takes two glasses and then downs the contents in rapid succession.

Erik has seen Charles work through the effects of too much alcohol, too much bad coffee, and - once - half a dose of a powerful knockout agent. That last heist had been all but laughably easy; the problem had been getting the loot through the hospital doors.

He tells himself he’s not worried for Charles; he tells himself to worry about his own shaking hands.

It just won’t do for him to botch up his last job because of nerves.

Charles thrusts a glass of red wine at him.

Erik stares, and then he sighs and takes the glass and gulps the contents down. “Ugh, too much oak,” he mutters.

“That’s my Erik,” Charles murmurs. “If you have time to bitch about your wine, I don’t have to worry about you.”

Erik blinks. “You worry about me?”

He gets a wink and a little smile in answer.

They circulate for a long hour, waiting for the gala proper to begin - finally, an usher appears on the steps to call the guests to dinner, surrounded by the jewel exhibits. Erik very studiously does not linger in the back of the moving crowd; he stays by Charles’s side. Holding hands comes naturally now. It’s the job, after all, and their job does come with not a little need for subterfuge.

This is all there is, there is nothing between them, despite Erik’s best efforts, and now that he’s getting out of the business he might as well give up on this other thing, too.

Halfway through the meal Charles coughs and excuses himself from their table, and Erik gives him a minute’s head start before he follows, leaving approving murmurs behind.

Charles beckons to him from the dark shadows of the corridor opposite the Ebony Star room, and quickly divests Erik of his jacket. “Knife,” he murmurs.

Erik slits the lining open, picks out his tools, and watches the corridor anxiously.

Charles keys a long sequence of something into his phone - there’s a quick flash of light and a near-inaudible beep, and he looks up with a determined light in his eyes. “We’re up.”

All of the lights in the museum go out.

“Five seconds,” Erik hisses, and counts to five in his head before they sprint across the corridor and into the room with the black diamond on its pedestal.

“Just as we practiced,” Charles mutters. “Take your time.”

Strangely, that soothes Erik’s jangling nerves. He spots all of the laser emplacements easily; takes each one of them out with a well-aimed jab of a tension wrench. “Now the hard part.”

“Searching for combination,” Charles whispers. The dim light coming from his mobile phone illuminates his eyes with strange shadows. “Got one. Keying in the first sequence: Nine, six, six, six, six, seven....”

Pale soft fingertips against plastic and metal - it’s no attack at all.

Three codes later, they are both watching as the glass case surrounding the Ebony Star lifts soundlessly up into the ceiling.

“Not much time left,” Charles says. “Do the honors?”

Erik grins, and reaches over to pluck the diamond off its cushion.

He knows about the pressure-activated alarm - what Erik doesn’t know is how Charles is going to get them out of here, so he very nearly jerks away when Charles works his hands past shirt and undershirt. “Charles,” he breathes, heartbeat rabbiting away in alarm.

“Do you trust me,” Charles whispers.

An unthinking reply: “Always.”

“Then follow my lead now - follow me for the last time.”

Erik very nearly asks, “Into what?” But there’s no time for words when Charles kisses him.

It’s not at all the kiss from outside. This is a kiss that is an attack; this is a kiss that is a declaration of war.

This kiss is Charles himself, as Erik has always known him.

“God, _yes_ ,” Erik all but whimpers, and he lets Charles guide him, lets Charles move him around.

It’s no surprise at all when he pulls away to take a breath and finds out that they’ve made it into the emergency stairwell on the floor where the Ebony Star used to be.

A rapid glance - he finds the security camera - and it’s his turn to position himself so that he’s turned away from it, so that he’s blocking its view of Charles’s face.

He kisses Charles back, and drinks in the encouraging sounds Charles makes.

They break away to laugh, faces still angled away from prying eyes, and Erik grabs Charles’s wrists and runs with him, all the way down, all the way out of the building, laughing even as they fade into the crowd struggling to make its way out of the museum.

The Ebony Star is a welcome weight in his pocket, and he knows just the right place to leave it, when he leaves this gig behind.

*

_Two months later_

Erik blinks awake, and there is a warm weight all along his side. A familiar heartbeat.

“I think I’ve got something that belongs to you,” Charles mutters around a badly-stifled yawn.

“Say the same for you,” Erik says.

“We’re doing this wrong,” Charles says. “I was supposed to woo you.”

“You can do that now,” Erik says.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Charles says, sounding wide awake, and his blue eyes are the last thing Erik sees before they crash into the kiss, into the rest of their lives.  



End file.
